


Burdens of the old

by Zombieheroine



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Bathing, Conjunx Endura, Gentle Kissing, Grieving, M/M, Old Age, Old Married Couple, Post-Canon, Post-War, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29021475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zombieheroine/pseuds/Zombieheroine
Summary: Optimus is grieving, and Megatron seeks to comfort his ancient conjunx.
Relationships: Megatron/Optimus Prime
Comments: 11
Kudos: 73





	Burdens of the old

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bonni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bonni/gifts).



> Uh, hi. I have become a reservist and lookdown is driving me crazy like everyone else now. So I'm trying my writing legs with robots, and oh, still home. 
> 
> I wanted to write something to a prompt "Megatron comforts Optimus after a long day of work" that's sat in my inbox since July, and since I don't do fluff without proper punch and I love world-building Cybertron, here we are.

When the two moons and the sun were in the sky together, Megatron took it as a sign to return home.

It wasn’t any special time nor was it an actual sign, but whenever he had been gone long enough for a stellar event to take place, whether in reality it was a century or two solars, he tended to feel like he had been apart from his conjunx too long.

The templar grounds were large. They weren’t technically tamed environment and they weren’t strictly wilderness either, but the great Temple of Primus was located deep in the heart of the wilds of Bad Lands, and there was a way there but built with as little intervention with nature as possible. 

The wilderness hadn’t been tamed but it had been pleaded with. Large rocks had been removed from a path and sometimes a mountain had been tempered to make a pass. There were small settlements of homes here and there, an oil house here and an energon station there. 

The plateaus had been worked so that there was a secure path leading across them and road sings regularly so that a pilgrim wouldn’t lose their way. 

The wild fields of crystals had been combed into neat rows and a path cleared through them. A Cybertronian of any size could wander through them without disturbing the perfectly straight rows of glittering diamonds and shining rocks in every colour, and on the edge of the field there was a smoothed boulder that had directions carved into it. 

The Temple of Primus lied ahead, and a carving of a map with a golden arrow marking the right path would take even an illiterate pilgrim to the destination. 

After the fields of glimmering magenta and shimmering black came the crystal woods. 

Sun storms, wind and thunder before the atmosphere had formed eons ago had risen up structures of metal and glass and frozen the elements into tall, splintering forms that reached towards the sky, and now that Megatron had visited Earth the structures reminded him of forests. Tender little pieces of glass, crystals and fine silver, copper and gold clung to the branches like leaves and sometimes came loose in the wind and fell to the ground, shattering into fine dust that’s glimmer covered it and crunched like snow under your pedes. 

It was dark in those woods, but gently a path had been cleared through them, some of the structures cleared out of the way and the ground worked fit for pedes and wheels alike. 

Megatron didn’t need the map, he knew the way home by now and could have walked it with his optics disabled without stumbling over a single step.

If he were there for the first time, he wouldn’t have noticed when he entered the actual temple grounds. There was no wall and no sign, simply a small, modest well that serves as Their altar by it. Megatron stopped out of a habit more than anything else, picked up the mining bucket by the well’s side and threw it into its depths. He listened to its banging on the walls until no sound came, then pulled the bucket up from the well again. 

Of course it was empty, it was empty every time, but Megatron still paid attention to the subtle ache in his elbow joints and the feel friction the thick metal wire left on his servos and reminded himself of the work he had done so long ago. 

Briefly he considered what he had pulled out of the well this time or was it simply a reminder of the miracle of life he couldn’t bring about, but soon put it out of his mind. He wasn’t a religious mech, not even in his old age with a conjunx prone to reflecting on various philosophies out loud. 

There were more inhabitants about the temple, almost like a small, nameless town. There were rings of streets now, libraries, record stores, small homes, and shops of crafters lining them, but Megatron walked the widest straight one directly to the temple. 

The massive, multi-tiered building of stone and steel was weathered as it was supposed to be, surrendered to the elements of the wild just like the rest of the pilgrimage there was. There were large blossoms of rust and dark clusters of crystallized elements on the bricks and pillars making the temple, which was no wonder since its large windows and arching doorways let everything inside. 

Megatron was just another memory of one ancient storm. The inhabitants knew him and thus no one tried to sell him a prayer bell or a crystal statue or souvenirs, simply let him move through the grounds. 

Up the stairs he went and inside the temple, the maze of wide halls and corridors as familiar to him as the road there. When he got further inside, the bite of the elements and their marks grew rarer, the walls clearer and the floor cleaner. Very few wandered inside the temple, only clerics and devotees, and the ancient mechs actually living there.

The ancient ones were only two. 

The further towards the inner sanctum Megatron walked, the clearer the floor became. Towards the outer rooms, the floors were heavy brown stone and metal, engraved with beautiful designs but still the material sturdy and rough against the wind and rain that were allowed to blow through the halls. 

Here, behind many turns and stairs, the floor turned into glass, laid on so thick and heavy that nothing could break it, and through the glass run the bright wires and circuits of the intricate systems of the central computer system. 

It was a closed system, nothing came into the temple and nothing left it, and to gain access one would have to make the trip. 

The knowledge of Primus, millions and millions of terabytes of knowledge and memories, art and stories, all to be witnessed by anyone if one only made the journey. The floor glowed with the lifeblood and light of that system, but Megatron had seen it so many times already that he hardly even noticed it. 

He wasn’t the type of mech to wonder at sights and displays over and over anyway, not when the truest, most sacred treasure in the entire temple was somewhere deeper inside. 

It took him a while. He located the innermost library and the central computer module, but it was the third interface to the system where he finally found Optimus. 

He was exactly where he had left him, cordical psychic patch connected into the back of his helm and his servos moving across the keyboard while before him three screens flashed with images and a matrix of massive amount of data streaming, reorganizing and processing as it was recorded and finally fed into the memory banks of the temple.

Megatron approached him carefully and laid a servo on his shoulder. “My one,” he spoke to him, low and gentle so that he wouldn’t startle him out of the stream, “that is enough.” 

Optimus seemed to sense more than see him there. His vents took in a deep gulp of air and a moment later puffed it heavily out. Megatron could feel the heat of an overworked system in the sigh, and Optimus’ servos stilled and his helm turned towards him. 

Megatron leaned his helm to meet him, their helm guards connecting so gently the metal barely made a sound when they touched. “Come now,” Megatron spoke. “I have been away for three weeks. Have you been connected the entire time?”

Optimus’ optics were unseeing, shining white with the current from the system and his visual feed most likely showing only the stream of memories and the matrix and none of his surroundings, but Megatron knew he heard him and felt his helm against his, the servo on his shoulder and his presence by his side. 

Optimus sighed and closed his optics, and the busy stream on the screens came to a halt. A series of links were carefully being disabled, and Megatron stared at the lights on the cable of the patch, waiting for the moment it could be unplugged.

“Has it been three weeks already?” Optimus muttered, his voicebox activating itself obviously for the first time since their parting.

“Yes, it has,” Megatron said, the slightest scold in his tone. He nuzzled his forehelm against Optimus’ and was calmed by the easy response he got, how even blind and disoriented his conjunx reached for him. “You have been here the whole time, haven’t you? You old fool, your joints will rust stuck.”

Optimus took another deep, laboured invent and let it out. There was a slight smell of burning dust in the air around him. “I’m sorry, dearest. I haven’t been… Focusing on myself lately.”

“I can see that,” Megatron commented drily. There was a heavy gloom in the atmosphere around Optimus, a burden he was being crushed under and didn’t know how to ease. Finally the mean, purple lights on the patch went dark. 

Before Optimus could lift his servo, Megatron went in with his own and closed his claws around the plug. He twisted the fastenings loose, then pulled the plug out of the port. He didn’t appreciate one bit how hot the apparatus felt and wondered how many circuits that thing would have burned from a lesser mech, and in a spark of anger towards the inanimate object that had preoccupied his conjux he simply tossed it on the floor.

Optimus clicked his glossa in displeasure. “Those are expensive,” he reminded in the overtly patient tone of his he used when in his opinion Megatron didn’t act his age.

Since Optimus’ optics were still blind, Megatron grinned to his face. “I do not care,” he said, his now freed claws easing the lid on the port shut. He gently rubbed over the surface to make sure the sealings were in place and the port secure. 

Optimus didn’t argue him anymore, simply grunted at the comfort, his helm tilting in his touch. He turned towards him in his chair and lifted a servo to wrap around Megatron’s elbow. Finally, his optics blinked open again, the light dimmed into their regular blue once again and he turned them to look at Megatron. He smiled.

“Welcome back, dearest,” he said. 

Megatron didn’t answer. Still, after millions and millions of times around the sun of their system, having Optimus’ attention and his smile felt too sweet, and he had to lean in to kiss him. He had never started to take those for granted, and the press of lips against lips was slow and careful and the kiss lingered, savouring that connection. 

When Megatron pulled back, he cradled Optimus’ helm with his servo. “Come, you should move around. I’m dusty and you have started to gather rust, we could both use a bath and fuel.”

Optimus was heavy to pull up from the chair, and not just from sitting still for such a long time. He gave a pained groan when he straightened up and leaned on Megatron, and not purely out of affection.

Megatron let his conjux rest against his side, listened to the faint screeching of his joints and linked their arms. A mech of Optimus’ age had a strong EM field, but it was subtle and hard to read, mostly affecting others unknowingly. But Megatron wasn’t just anyone, and he didn’t need anyone to point out the heavy shroud of grief that lingered around Optimus. It had been there for a while now. 

“Come,” Megatron said again instead of acknowledging the heaviness in the air around them, “I will scrub your back for you.” 

They strolled slowly through the temple, its many corridors and wide staircases towards the lower levels, heading underground. Even though it was a small eternity ago, underground spaces still triggered an echo of memory in Megatron that told him to expect a battle or watch out for spies, and he knew that even a Cybertronian wouldn’t live long enough for the glittering caves underneath the temple to outweigh the memories of old Kaon. 

It was of no importance though. The clittering caves with their fountains of oil had been turned into a bathhouse in the same, subtle negotiating way the terrain from the urban centres to the temple had been worked. The floors were smoothed and the baths were tiled so that bots could step in and sit on the steps while bathing, there were lanterns here and there to light up the darkness, but the large dripstones full of glimmering minerals and jewels in the roof had been left as they were. It was a space gently cleared into nature, and as such a sign of respect towards their life-giving planet, the sacred ground they treaded with every step. They moulded it when they had to and no more than that.

The baths were empty when they got there, and without much fuss Megatron helped Optimus into a large pool of hot oil, following after him. 

Optimus let out a deep sigh when he relaxed underneath the hot liquid and rested his back against the poolside. This time the noise was relieved, the weight of grief shifting aside for a moment. 

Megatron sensed pain from him, old joints and struts having grown too smooth into their slots, having been ground permanently raw and not fitting together as perfectly as they had when he was still new. He suffered from the same pain himself, but he had carried poorly welded battle scars for so long that pain was nothing but a constant thrum in his life, one he could not only stand but to find meaning and pride in.

But he was old. He had gotten slower, his parts also slipping and less precise. He didn’t mind it so much, but the vastness of his age was starting to be felt in his spark. 

“Feel better now?” he asked Optimus, who graced him with a smile and a nod. 

Megatron hummed with approval. “Come here then,” he called, reaching out his servo. “I promised I’d scrub that rust off you.”

“Such attentive lover you are,” Optimus crooned, still finding joy in this side of him that he got to enjoy. 

Megatron just clicked his glossa at his old fool of a conjunx and instead of waiting on him, pushed his pedes against the wall and kicked himself across the pool closer to him. The thick liquid made his massive frame feel light and the heat eased the pain in his limbs, and he hoped it was having the same effect on his conjunx. 

“Someone has to take care of you,” Megatron said and reached to the pool side towards the pile of fresh washcloths. 

He would never get used to the little pieces of luxury in the grand, wild temple. The washcloths were not like the rags they had made do with in the Pits, but thick, plush material that soaked up oil and scrubbed off just about any sort of grime metal could gain. Even in Megatron’s large servos, the cloth wasn’t a rag but a towel, and even if he clicked his glossa and scoffed at the notion, when he dipped the cloth into the pool and then brough it against Optimus, he felt like the worst kind of indulging conjunx and didn’t mind one bit. 

Optimus let out a deep hum and dimmed down his optics when Megatron rubbed circles into his armour plating and scrubbed over his spinal strut. For a while they simply sat there, side by side in the steaming, shimmering bath and enjoyed each other’s touch and silent company. 

Megatron kept working the washcloth over Optimus’ back and shoulders, over his hip plating and down his arms. It was more than was needed and more than he had promised, but neither minded it. Optimus leaned against the pool side as well as against Megatron’s chassis and rested his helm on his shoulder. If his EM field was heavy with grief, it must have felt like a lead core inside his own chassis. 

Gently, Megatron took Optimus’ servo in his and rubbed the cloth carefully over each digit of his, lingering on even when he was definitely fully soaked and perfectly clean.

“I can feel your grief,” Megatron mentioned. Optimus’ servo squeezed shut then, closing around his. He said nothing, and Megatron didn’t see the point of pulling either his servo or the washcloth free, so he simply held on and rested the side of his helm against Optimus. “Will you speak to me?” 

“What’s there to speak of?” Optimus asked in a weary sigh. 

Megatron hummed, lightly shrugging. “What do you wish to speak of?”

“What is gone is gone. There’s nothing more to it,” Optimus said, unusually harsh. 

“And still you labour for weeks at a time. It’s not for nothing even if you claim it is,” Megatron pointed out.

Optimus made an unhappy grunt that he did whenever they argued and he knew Megatron was right. The little sound made Megatron smile to himself, but he didn’t say anything. 

“It is not the same thing,” Optimus argued, fully knowing it was futile.

“What is it then?” Megatron pressed gently. “Speak to me, my one. If someone understand you better than yourself, it is I.”

Optimus groaned, this time in a defeated way. When so long ago Megatron had learned a new tactic for the first time in eons and switched from rage and fury into pacifying gestures and softer words, Optimus had been defeated and he had never quite learned what to do with that, only that he would respond in kind. 

“I grieve too much. I don’t know how to speak of it,” Optimus said quietly, his helm nuzzling deeper into the crook of Megatron’s neck. Megatron didn’t think he noticed it but sought out that comfort subconsciously, and even after all the years between them and millions and millions of gestures like that, Megatron’s spark gave a bright pulse at it.

“But you are speaking of it right now, even if you don’t know what you want to say,” he said. 

Optimus made a vaguely agreeing noise, and they fell into comfortable silence again.

Their servos still held each other, and in a minute slowly and in an almost shy move, Optimus sought out Megatron’s other servo under the surface. His digits squeezed his servo tightly, and slowly as if he had to coax Megatron into it he pulled them both to his chassis, effectively wrapping himself into Megatron’s arms.

Megatron let him show him what he needed, then shifted them both into a more comfortable position, pulling Optimus’ back flush against his front and arranging his conjux securely into his embrace. Optimus sighed, deeply pleased, and something in the atmosphere between them lightened. 

“I just can hardly believe the humankind is gone,” Optimus confessed. “Gone, all of them. All of their colonies, their homeworld, the entire species. It’s like… It’s like they were never even there, and I…” 

“Death humbles even us,” Megatron spoke gently. “It’s understandable.” 

“Perhaps,” Optimus begrudgingly agreed, “But still… Still, I don’t know what to do with this. Or even why I’m… It’s been millions of years. Millions.”

Megatron turned to press his faceplate against Optimus’ helm. “You want to honour something you loved. You want to witness it and put it on record so that others won’t forget. You want to remember. That is a noble way to grieve,” he said. 

“Can you love an entire species over millions of years from across a galaxy?” Optimus asked. He sounded disbelieving, as if it was ridiculous to even suggest. 

Megatron didn’t laugh. “If someone has such love in them, that is you. I have felt it, my one. You have been always been defined by a love so great it is a fault.”

Optimus fell into an embarrassed silence, and Megatron felt him curl up in a coy manner while the grief around them became heavier again. But if Optimus was love, Megatron was strength, and that grief could have kept growing all it liked, and he would still bear its weight. He held his conjunx tighter for a moment, letting him feel that strength.

“I am here to contain that love now,” Megatron spoke against the smooth arch of his cheek. “Like you are here to guide my fury.” 

Instead of arguing, Optimus tilted his helm towards Megatron and captured his mouth in a kiss. It was one of those almost reflex like gestures, when all their words and grand ideas fell through and all there was left to do was to kiss. It was like there was a special wire in both of them, a circuitry that when shocked sparked them to lean towards one another and kiss. Megatron kissed back with indulgence, letting his conjux speak his mind with that gesture. 

When Optimus pulled back, he rested his helm on Megatron’s shoulder again, and Megatron relaxed back into their embrace in the same breath as well. 

When Optimus spoke next, his voice was grim but the words seemed to come easier. “Do you ever think it is a curse to live this long? To outlive entire civilizations? Worlds? Our home as we knew it?” 

Megatron considered it. They had indeed lived long, even for Cybertronians. Back when they had lived as if they were mere cogs in a well-oiled machine, barely anyone had reached their age but had been become obsolete and broken down into parts long before. 

Even in Cybertronian sense, they were ancient. Their frames were stiff and starting to fall apart on their own, their colours faded and new paint simply refused to stick anymore, their biolights dimmer and some permanently darkened. Even their sparks felt like dying suns, burning up and paling at the same time. 

They were obsolete as well, too great and old to take on new names or roles anymore. They simply walked here and there, speaking to those who were brave and determined enough to speak to them first, and focused on entering their overburdened memories into the library banks across the planet. 

Megatron hadn’t ever dreamed he would live this long, or that he would even want to. When he had been sparked he had been nothing, a nameless cog, not even a drone, and after that a gladiator living for glory and constantly on the edge. 

Even the great war felt like an exciting adventure now, a million years in exile and their kind nearly dying out. All that time, he had waited for his swift end and he had been still perfect, strong, sharp and powerful. But no more. 

The answer was easy.

“No,” he said, “not together with you.”


End file.
